David Onama\u2019s rise up the UFC featherweight rankings could begin in his first promotional headliner, but after that, his path to a title shot is foggy.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Onama faces fellow streaking contender Steve Garcia in the main event of UFC Vegas 110 at the APEX. Onama brings a four-fight win streak into the matchup, while Garcia has won his past six inside the octagon.<\/p>\n
After defeating Giga Chikadze at UFC Kansas City this past in April, Onama isn\u2019t surprised to be facing Garcia in a pivotal main event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t too surprised cause first they offered me to fight Steve Garcia Oct. 4 [at UFC 320] but he couldn\u2019t make Oct. 4 for whatever reason,\u201d Onama told MMA Fighting. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s weight or whatever, and they told me, \u2018OK, let\u2019s do either Nov. 1, the 8th, or the 15th. The 15th was New York City and, and the 1st and the 8th was the APEX.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018All right, look, if I fight [at UFC 322], I better be high on the main card. If not, put me on the 1st or the 8th for the main event or I don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to do. So they end up getting the fight for [Saturday] against Steve Garcia, so I wasn\u2019t really too surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia picked up his highest profile win to date in his most recent contest, defeating Calvin Kattar via unanimous decision at July\u2019s UFC Nashville event. Prior to that, \u201cMean Machine\u201d stopped five opponents in a row inside of two rounds.<\/p>\n
Onama has been impressed with what his upcoming opponent has done, but feels he brings more to the table \u2014 both in skill, and excitement levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cSteve, he\u2019s a great fighter,\u201d Onama said. \u201cHe\u2019s out there doing his thing, he\u2019s out there finishing fights, and I\u2019m also going out there and finishing fights. [He\u2019s] getting his wins. I think he\u2019s like on a five- or six- [fight] winning streak. I\u2019m on a four- or five- [fight win streak], and this is why we\u2019re fighting this weekend, for the main event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, it\u2019s a great matchup. We\u2019re both exciting and like I said, I just feel like I\u2019m more [exciting] than he is. I\u2019m looking forward for whatever this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Onama feels a win will put him in the top 10 of the loaded featherweight divisional rankings, and says he\u2019ll have two names to call out if he gets his hand raised. If that happens, he won\u2019t be the only Factory X fighter to make a title run as teammate Youssef Zalal is currently in the championship picture.<\/p>\n
Right now, champion Alexander Volkanovski doesn\u2019t have an opponent for his first title defense of his new reign. Onama was asked who should fight Volkanovski next, and to no surprise, he says his teammate should get the shot after his quick submission win at UFC 320.<\/p>\n
But if Zalal captures the title, Onama says he\u2019ll change course without hesitation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a guy, I can\u2019t picture his name,\u201d Onama said. \u201cHold on. They call him \u2018The Moroccan Devil.\u2019 I feel like that guy should fight Volk next. I think it\u2019s a good matchup. He just beat Josh Emmett, so I feel like that guy should fight Volkanovski. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he\u2019s champion, then I guess I got to go up a weight class, huh? I\u2019m going up [if he wins the title].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Onama\u2019s rise up the UFC featherweight rankings could begin in his first promotional headliner, but after that,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-254775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}